


I Suppose

by Zinnia_Heliantheae



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Panic Attacks, some cute fluff for your day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 22:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zinnia_Heliantheae/pseuds/Zinnia_Heliantheae
Summary: The boys are cute together; includes scene from the Great Game (S01 Finale) and a little bit of afterwards





	I Suppose

**Author's Note:**

> \- i am only in the first season of sherlock the tv show but i have read all of the sherlock holmes novels so i get excited  
> * i have only ever had one panic attack and obviously nothing as dreadful as the things John/Sherlock go through so if i mess something up thats on me and i'm worry  
> ** this is also the first thing i've wrote in approximately two years so we'll see how this goes  
> -enjoy-

“I’ll burn the heart out of you.”  
The words echoed throughout the room, the only noise other than the gentle movement of the pool beside the men’s feet. For weeks they had searched for him. Sherlock had savored his every move, his words becoming like a choir to his ears and his puzzles fitting together like they were meant for him. As much as Sherlock refused to admit it, he enjoyed people like Moriarty. The chase, the intellect, the puzzles all beginning to fit together; it completed him.  
However, standing alongside the pool with a loaded pistol locked onto Moriarty’s skull he could feel anything but delight. Although his arms remained steady and his eyes let out none of the emotions he had been feeling, he was overwhelmed. Not because he hadn’t already deduced how this night would end; no, Sherlock was too smart for that. He had already come up with eight possible outcomes, the raw feeling of worry plagued his soul when his eyes flitted in between the consulting criminal and his dear John.  
John. How the name had become such a familiarity across his tongue. His little doctor, running around with him and feeding him the information he was sure he could have received from someone else. But he had taken a liking to his Watson. Despite his inability to achieve the higher thinking Sherlock had, there was something about John that was… calming. Maybe it was how naive he was to the depressions of the world. No. He couldn’t let himself get distracted by things like that.  
“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” Sherlock answered back, keeping his voice even and his eyes directed towards Moriarty, speaking slightly towards John as he spoke. When he had mentioned earlier in the case that he hadn’t cared whether or not people were dying, John had been appalled. He supposed that it showed he had no sympathy, and John could confirm that.  
“But we both know that’s not quite true.” Sherlock glanced up, blinking as he heard his thoughts ring out in a clear voice. Moriarty knew what he was thinking, and he hated that.  
“Well, I’d better be off!” Moriarty grinned, glancing around the room as if he was unsure where he was supposed to go after that, before looking back at Sherlock and speaking more. But he wasn’t listening, his mind was formulating plans, thinking about scenarios, trying to fill in the blanks. This was all too simple. Moriarty wouldn’t just let them go… would he? He had the two people who would thwart him in one room, and yet he refused to take the bait? It was all too simple.  
Yet, he couldn’t find himself in exactly the right mind to care. His eyes danced back over to John, who had been avoiding his eyes the entire time and instead glancing everywhere he could not to see him. It worried him, even more, to see him that way.  
“What if I shoot you now - right now?” Sherlock cocked his gun in anticipation, acting as if he would ever shoot Moriarty. He knew what would happen if he did, and he didn’t want to think about it.  
“Then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face. ‘Cause I’d be surprised Sherlock; really I would. And just a teensy bit disappointed. And of course you wouldn’t be able to cherish it for very long.” Moriarty’s face contorted into a forced smile, and that was all Sherlock needed to decide his next course of action; he was going to let Moriarty go. He wasn’t going to risk the lives of everyone in the room - no, he wasn’t going to risk John’s life for a silly feud that was between him and Jim.  
It was only until after Moriarty left that Sherlock let his guard down and kneeled down. He set the pistol down next to him, grabbing John and beginning to unstrap the bomb from his chest.  
“All right?” Sherlock murmured sharply, focused vehemently on getting the bomb off of John and as far away as it could humanly go. When the man above him made no move to verbally respond, he raised his voice, “Are you all right?”  
“Yeah-yeah, I’m fine.” John finally said from above him, breathlessly. He was surprised by the ferocity of the hands working on the contraption he had been strapped to. He had never seen Sherlock so focused, even when he was off in his mind palace. There was a different look in Sherlock’s, one he never thought that he would see in the eyes of the cold and cunning detective; love.  
The next time he saw those eyes, it wasn’t in such a foreboding situation.  
John had a history of nightmares. Of visions and scenarios playing out in his head. Most of them formulating from his time as an army doctor in Afghanistan, the Jezail bullet that had grazed his subclavian artery, the fever that had overtaken him afterward, coming back to London with nobody to turn to. Him; Sherlock Holmes. His greatest dream but also his worst nightmare.  
He tossed fitfully in his sleep, dreaming about the day he held Moriarty in his hands and offered himself up to the invisible snipers for Sherlock. He would have never expected Sherlock to feel the same, but he had a deep sense of caring for him. What would have happened if the snipers did not hesitate to shoot Sherlock in the head? The thought killed him inside.  
He snapped awake in his bed, breathing heavily from his excursions even though he had been nowhere but his own bed, his dreading eyes peering into the living room, hoping to see the dark silhouette of Sherlock that he saw there so often.  
But he wasn’t there.  
Sherlock. Where’s Sherlock? John’s brain was sent into overdrive, frantically moving off of the bed and untangling himself from the sheets, sprinting into the living room. Sherlock? He tossed things in the room haphazardly; throwing the couch, the chair, the lamp, Mrs. Hudson’s tea kettle as if somehow he could have shrunk and fit in there. The search caused quite the commotion, the sound of things slamming around and glass breaking.  
John hadn’t been aware of the sounds though, he had been frantic, a breath catching in his throat that he wasn’t aware had been attempting to get out, and a sob wrenching from his gut. He hadn’t realized the hot tears streaking down his face, nor the erratic beating of his heart. As a doctor, he knew what it was in an instant; a panic attack. He hadn’t had one in years, not since before he moved in with Sherlock. Now, his deepest fears were coming back to haunt him, and he needed help. But where was Sherlock?  
He crawled on the floor with all of the energy that he had, snatching his phone from his bedside table where he had left it to charge that night, and hitting the 1 on his speed dial.  
_ Calling Sherlock Holmes_  
The phone went of two times, resulting in another wave of panic going through John’s body. Every single possibility ran through his mind; what if Sherlock had been kidnapped and killed and needed John’s help but John wasn’t there? What if Sherlock had decided that he was done being his flatmate and just up and left? What if-  
“John? What is it?” Sherlock’s voice cut through his scenarios with his cold demeanor, seemingly annoyed that John had called at such an early time. What time was it, anyway? He didn’t know.  
“S-Sherl-lock…?” John whispered shakily, not realizing how much energy it would take out of him. He rested his head against his closet doors, shutting his eyes and just trying to focus on breathing. Breathing. The word seemed foreign to him. He was hyperventilating, that’s for sure.  
“John? What’s going on? Is everything all right?” Sherlock’s tone has switched, away from the annoyance he had once experienced to worry about the sound of his friend. He sounded distant, scared, frail. He never knew his doctor to be frail.  
“Plea-ease co-come here,” John answered back, feeling relieved at hearing Sherlock’s voice but his brain not processing that that had meant that he was alive. He needed to see him, sooner rather than later.  
\---  
“All right, all right, I’m on my way. What’s going on… John?” Sherlock had begun to hail a cab, trying to keep John on the phone and talking. He had already understood what was happening without John saying it. He just didn’t know what had triggered it. He cursed himself for being out so late so that he couldn’t take care of him and see him immediately, his eagerness had not rubbed off since the Moriarty case.  
However, the silence on the other end of the line was what worried him the most. Ragged breaths filled his ears, but nothing else could be heard. If the doctor was trying to make words, they were falling on deaf ears.  
“Watson, speak to me.” He growled, managing to hail a cab after practically running out into the road, clamoring in and practically screaming the address at him. Poor fellow, he might have thought, but this was no time to be playing sympathy. John was in trouble.  
He made it back to 221B Baker Street in record time, throwing a random amount of cash at the cabbie and rushing up the stairs. “John!” Sherlock called, looking around the living room for signs of the man. It was only after he had turned his head to gaze through the open slit to John’s room that he saw the mess that John had become. “Oh… John.”  
He was only recognizable by the dirty blonde curls sticking out from every angle of his head; he had his arms wrapped around his knees, shoving them into his face to hide away. Even from this distance away, Sherlock could see his body shaking and his chest heaving as if it took him a great deal of effort to draw air into his lungs. Sherlock hated seeing him like this.  
He rushed over to his side, pulling him apart piece by piece until he could see the face of the broken man inside, face covered in undried tears and eyes having that distant look that made Sherlock realize he was having a flashback to something.  
“John, can you hear me?” Sherlock demanded, trying to gain Watson’s attention by speaking to him, but he gained no response. When he realized that this wasn’t an effective method, he instead cupped John’s cheeks and forced him to look up at him.  
“Sherlock, the bomb, the bomb is-” John started, but Sherlock cut him off.  
“John, I’m right here. It’s okay. We’re going to try and breathe, can you breathe for me?” Sherlock questioned, grabbing one of John’s hands and pressing it firmly against his own chest. He then began to exaggerate his breath, breathing a little sigh of relief when he saw John’s own breathing begin to even out in accordance with his. “Good. You’re doing well, John.”  
They sat there for what seemed like hours, John’s hand pressed up against Sherlock’s chest, focusing on his breathing until it came to what seemed normal, despite how shakily it seemed to come.  
“I’m… I’m sorry.” John croaked after a long period of silence, feeling guilty for making Sherlock drop whatever he was doing to come and baby him when he probably could have gotten through himself. “Listen, I-I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll-”  
“My dear Watson. You have nothing to apologize for.” Sherlock smiled, and for once, John saw that the smile was genuine. “I’m just glad that you’re all right. Now, off to bed.” Sherlock’s demeanor snapped back again to his ‘get things done’ attitude, but this time, John would have none of it.  
“My bed?” John questioned quietly, and there was Sherlock’s raised eyebrow before he sighed, picking up John and moving him to a comfortable spot on his bed.  
“I suppose.”


End file.
